#478 – Amazon Finally Axes Commingling! | Weekly Buzz 12/12/25
We’re back with another episode of the AM/PM Podcast and Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s VP of Education and Strategy, Bradley Sutton. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, talk about Helium 10’s newest features, and provide a training tip for the week for serious sellers of any level.
Amazon: Commingling practices will end effective March 31, 2026
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-news/articles/QVRWUERLSUtYMERFUiNHSktDTEM5N0s5MkRBWFAy
Amazon in discussions with USPS about future relationship
https://www.reuters.com/technology/amazon-explores-cutting-ties-with-usps-washington-post-reports-2025-12-04/
TikTok Shop tightens Postal Service shipping options for sellers
https://www.retaildive.com/news/tiktok-shop-usps-label-requirements-change/807086/
Assess new brand names with Brand Name Evaluator
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-news/articles/QVRWUERLSUtYMERFUiNHVzNBWVRVTEZWN0VQWU1C
Helium 10 is hosting an Elite workshop in Irvine, CA with sessions on AI SEO, TikTok Shop growth, and keyword research. Use code Elite100 at https://h10.me/q4workshop for a free $299 ticket.
Lastly, an announcement for Helium 10’s podcasts. The AM/PM Podcast will now focus on news and expert-led strategy trainings for e-commerce sellers. For brand stories and seller journeys, subscribe to the Serious Sellers Podcast.
In episode #478 of the AM/PM Podcast and Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley covers:
- 00:00 – Introduction
- 01:28 – RIP Commingling
- 08:58 – RIP USPS?
- 10:15 – Amazon Listing Sync
- 12:38 – RIP TikTok Shop USPS Labels
- 14:18 – TikTok Shop Ads
- 17:27 – Amazon Brand Evaluator
- 19:18 – Elite Workshop
- 20:29 – Serious Sellers Podcast
Transcript:
Bradley:
Amazon finally gets rid of the dreaded commingling. Will the post office stop delivering Amazon products? An important new rule for TikTok shop shipping. These stories and more on today’s Weekly Buzz.
How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the AM/PM podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you a rundown of all the goings on in the Amazon TikTok shop and e-commerce world.
We let you know what new features Helium 10 has, and we also give a training tip of the week. So let’s get started and see what’s buzzing. All right, guys, this is the inaugural Weekly Buzz that we are doing here on the AM/PM podcast.
This is a show we’ve been doing for about five years previously on the Serious Sellers podcast and also on YouTube, where we just give, like I just mentioned, a rundown of all the news stories, you know, e-commerce brands out there. We need to know what’s going on in the e-commerce world so that we can adapt accordingly. And this week is an excellent example of why it’s important to keep up because one of the most dreaded things that happens to Amazon sellers or that Amazon sellers have to deal with perhaps is now a thing of the past.
If you’re a brand owner, but if you’re a reseller, it’s actually maybe even worse for you. So what is that? Let’s go ahead and hop into the news. So this first article is actually from Amazon itself.
All right. This was something that was announced a few months ago, like teased, and now it’s actually coming to fruition. So if you look in your dashboard, you’d have seen this message that says co-mingling practices will end effective March 31st, 2026.
First of all, how crazy is it that we’re on the cusp of 2026? My goodness gracious. Anyways, this article says in March, we’re going to end co-mingling practices across our supply chain and update eligibility criteria for using manufacturer barcodes. What is co-mingling? Well, it’s what Amazon says.
It’s when we fulfilled customer orders using exact product matches from the closest available inventory available in the Amazon fulfillment network, even if that bill inventory belonged to a different seller. Now, this is key. All right.
So those of you who have always used FNSKUs, the Amazon barcode, you never have to worry about co-mingling. Co-mingling is when you use the manufacturer barcode, like a UPC, and you send it in for your ASIN, right? But let’s say there’s like two other sellers who are trying to sell the same product, whether it’s genuine or not, they just stick the UPC on the package, right? And they send it to Amazon. Well, all of that inventory has been getting in like the same bin, right? Or, you know, the same location.
So in the past, like, let’s say somebody orders from Amazon, like our coffin shelf, and it says shipped by Amazon, sold by Manny’s Mysterious Oddities. Well, if I had just put a UPC sticker on there, not the Amazon barcode and everybody else had the UPC sticker, Amazon is going to pull from whatever bin or whatever warehouse has that inventory closest, even if it wasn’t mine. And then let’s say some, some nefarious character out there is trying to do me damage.
Maybe he sends in a whole bunch of defective coffin shelves. Well, Amazon has no way to know where that bad coffin shelf came from because it was just all mixed in together. It’s co-mingled, right? And then all of a sudden now bad reviews, you know, start going on the listing and you know, it’s your listing, but because there’s other sellers on it who just mix their ridiculous inventory in there and yours, you’re kind of like getting the bad rap.
And so that’s why I’ve always told people like, nah, like, like don’t do co-mingled don’t just put a UPC that anybody can just mix up, use FNSKU so that if something strange starts happening, Amazon can see clearly that it’s not your inventory. And you know, they might be able to kick some people off, but now this is basically going away. All right.
So this article says, Hey, if you’re a brand owner with the brand representative selling role in brand registry, you no longer need to apply Amazon barcode stickers. That would be the FN SKU to prevent co-mingling on products that you have already, uh, have manufactured barcodes such as you PCs. Now how this is going to work.
I don’t know. You know, like if everybody’s putting the same, um, barcode on it, right. How does Amazon distinguish? I would assume that now Amazon is going to segregate inventory based on when it comes in.
And they might just like put their own sticker on it or something after the fact, it’d be interesting to look at packages after they get shipped to see if there’s like some different sticker on there or something, because otherwise if 10 people send in one box, the same box or the same product with the same UPC, how does Amazon distinguish where it came from? Unless at the time of receiving it, now it gets like some other identification. Regardless, that’s Amazon’s problem to worry about. The point is we don’t have to do that anymore if we don’t want to.
However, if you’re a reseller, it says you will now be required to use Amazon barcode stickers. So resellers, a lot of times would do the co-mingling, but now if you’re a reseller, you don’t own the brand, whether you liked it or not, you have to use, you have to switch to FNSKU now. In other words, you know, like you, let’s say you’re doing arbitrage, right? And you buy 50 products at Walmart, you know, they, they’ve got the barcode.
People would just send that to Amazon just goes into the commingled inventory. Now resellers, they have to print out 50 Amazon FBA or FNSKU barcodes and put it over the UPC barcode of the product. So you resellers are probably a little bit upset about this.
Now Amazon provided us with a document with some frequently asked questions about this. And so let me go over some of those points right now. First of all, it says, Hey, if there’s a product that doesn’t have a manufacturer barcode like G10 exempt or something like that, or just, there’s no UPC.
Yes, you have to use the FNSKU. Another question that people might wonder is like, let’s say you’re creating a new SKU that uses the manufacturer barcode. And so you want to let your old SKU like sell out.
Well, as you know, if you let your inventory get low, normally you’re going to get what? The low inventory fee. Amazon is waiving that during this time period. If that’s the transition that you’re making.
Now one question that Amazon had put here in their FAQs is, Hey, I’m a reseller. Why am I required to use stickers? While brand owners aren’t? And the answer is Amazon barcodes maintain clear inventory separation and product traceability. Brand owners are exempted from this requirement because they have direct responsibility for their products quality and they procure manufacturer barcodes.
All right. These are standard identifiers that allow us to accurately track and manage their products through our fulfillment network, but other sellers, including resellers, Amazon barcodes ensure we can properly attribute and track your inventory separate. So now as I’m saying this out loud, my earlier questions is kind of being answered.
So now as I’m saying this out loud, I kind of am figuring out what is going on, how Amazon’s going to track. Maybe they’re not putting an extra sticker. Basically the only person that has the UPC is the brand owner.
So that’s almost like their own FNSKU. Does that make sense? At first it didn’t make sense when I was thinking, how is this going to work? But there’s only one person who’s allowed to use the UPC going forward and that is the brand owner. So if a product had the UPC on it and that was what was scanned to go to a customer, it’s like that ties directly back to the seller.
Now I’m like, why hasn’t Amazon been doing this for years? It doesn’t even cost them extra money. I was thinking maybe they had to put some special sticker or something. No, no.
Basically if it’s a reseller or somebody else in the listing, they’re using an FN SKU, they can tie it. If it’s a UPC, they know exactly where it comes from. Duh.
I don’t know why I didn’t think that that, uh, how that was going to work, but that sounds like what’s going to happen. Another question people might ask is, Hey, if I have to do a new listing for SKU, am I going to lose the performance metrics from the previous SKU? The answer is no, you’re not going to, you’re not going to lose that. Now, another question you might have is how do you switch? Well, I kind of mentioned it earlier, but you can’t just like take your SKU and switch like you can, which I don’t suggest ever, ever doing, uh, going from FBA to FBM.
No, you actually have to create a new SKU under your ASIN to go to the, uh, sticker lists inventory. All right. So there you have it.
A long awaited end of co-mingling at least for brand owners is finally here. Uh, next article is actually from Reuters. It’s entitled Amazon and discussions with USPS about future relationships.
So basically in a nutshell, what’s happening is the contract is going to be up next October, I believe. So now the postmaster general is having a reverse auction that might create more competition within the post office for Amazon business. You don’t know.
Amazon is the biggest customer of the post office says here, $6 billion in annual revenue in 2025, almost 10% of USPS sales. Now, how does this affect Amazon sellers? Well, if USPS, for whatever reason, like says, sorry, we’re not going to do business with you anymore. You know, a lot of our packages that, you know, we ship to customers is delivered by the post office.
So this could affect, you know, shipping prices, you know, potentially for you, um, even Amazon or, you know, mainly Amazon uses it for their own, uh, FBA sometimes. And if you buy shipping from Amazon, sometimes you have USPS. So does this mean if there’s less options, the prices might go up, especially if Amazon has to use their own network, you know, for especially remote locations, who knows, but that’s something definitely worth monitoring.
We have about like 10 months before, uh, the contract expires. So we have plenty of time to prepare. All right, next up, let’s go to our strategy of the week.
And this one is about sinking listings. All right. Um, how many of you have had issues where you are trying to update a listing on Amazon? You know, you update a bullet point and you do it like five, six times and it doesn’t work.
And maybe you’re a, you’re not a flat file King. Well, did you know that there’s a way that actually has more rights to overwrite a listing than just editing it in seller central? Shivali is going to show you how.
Shivali:
Most sellers build listings in one tool and then they manually copy and paste into seller central only to find that Amazon doesn’t accept the changes or requires flat files.
Oh, this solves that by letting you update listings inside of Helium 10, and then send them straight to Amazon through the API, often with a higher success rate than editing directly in seller central. So you can focus on the things that truly matter. And what’s cool is we are one of the only ones that allows you to sync it directly to Amazon.
I’m sure you don’t have the time for tedious work. I know I don’t, especially if you’re constantly updating your listing every few months and you have thousands of SKUs, no more putting a title in and discovering it didn’t change on Amazon or having to open a case just so they can tell you to use a flat file listing builder sync actually has better listing authority than editing directly inside of seller central nine times out of 10, as long as it’s not a forbidden keyword, if you cannot update your listing in seller central, but you do do it with the listing builder and hit sync, it will override that listing. So you get to do what you’re trying to do.
I’ve experienced this with my own listings. It’s almost at the same level or sometimes above using a flat file. Why? Amazon likes Helium 10.
So when we do it through the API, it can overwrite your listing in a stronger way than just editing it. This is for diamond and above. You can connect it to your listing and seller central hit sync, and it will sync.
It usually takes five minutes, sometimes 15, sometimes a few hours to show, but exercise and patience, and it should go through. You still have to create your listing the first time in seller central, but once it exists, then you can toggle into this. And anytime you find new keywords or you want to switch keywords around for relevancy use listing builder, because you can sync your listings with a better success rate than in your own seller central account.
And of course, keep up with how you’re doing stacked up next to your competitors while doing it, because we have the listing analysis feature right at the bottom on the left hand panel, but we cover that in another video. So I’ll catch you somewhere else.
Bradley:
All right. Thank you for that. Next article is also about the post office post office making a lot of news this week. And it’s has to do not with Amazon this time, but for TikTok shop.
And it says here, TikTok shop. This is an article from the retail dive says TikTok shop Titans, postal service, skipping options for sellers. Now this one doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Like actually makes no sense to me, but what’s happening is this is TikTok is saying USPS shipping labels must be purchased through TikTok shipping starting in January or face rejection. This is affecting me, me. I, when I ship TikTok, I don’t buy from TikTok because I have good rates and I connected to my machine and everything through stamps.com. That’s what I’ve been using for.
Oh my goodness. Probably like 15 years. And so basically what this article is saying is that starting in January, if for me, if I try and ship something via stamps.com, it’s still through USPS and then paste the tracking number into the order.
TikTok is not going to accept it. It’s going to give an error message. All right.
So that’s going to be interesting. You’re going to have to buy your postage from TikTok. I don’t know what’s the reason, you know, for this.
Um, actually it might be better for sellers, you know, because you have more protection. Like if you’re buying it from TikTok and USPS like screws up, it’s kind of like on TikTok, not on you as opposed to if you’re buying your, your, you know, shipping elsewhere. Now you got to go worry about getting your money back, et cetera.
So another, just a heads up. If you’re doing fulfilled by merchant for TikTok shop and you use USPS, you have to buy that postage from TikTok going forward. All right, next up is our Helium 10 new feature alert.
And this is for our Helium 10 ads tool for TikTok shop. If you’re running GMV max ads, we’ve had an ads tool, but all it did before was just match whatever you could do inside of TikTok shop. And now we’ve got some extra analytics.
And so let me just show you briefly a couple of screenshots of what this is. And if you’re just listening to this on the radio, you’ll have to, or the radio, nobody listens to the radio anymore. I just showed my age right there.
If you’re listening to this on your iPod or your iPhone or something, uh, you’ll just have to kind of visualize what I am describing, but this is our new creative insight ads tool where you can now, you know, go into your shop, enter a product and start seeing the performance of different videos. And also you can like, maybe stop advertising for it. You’re going to be able to have a video analysis page where you can see the total like shares, comments, total views, you know, like maybe this is, it has nothing to do with ads.
Like, you just want to see what’s going on on the video. You’re going to see over time video performance, uh, the gross revenue over time, the order sales, uh, sales units. And you’ll also see if you have your ads token connected, the video ads performance.
So, uh, you can see your row as compared to spend and your revenue. So pretty cool there. Um, here’s a picture of how it’s going to look where you can see, Hey, uh, you can filter out videos and then you’ll see like a snapshot of the video.
You’ll see instant information on it, such as GMB, click-through rate, views, uh, conversion rate, uh, et cetera. And what you’re going to be able to do is like instantly from the here, like, like just stop it from showing ads. Like if it’s not performing well, you’re like, no, I don’t want to like keep putting money behind this video.
It sucks. You know, the, the conversion rate, the click-through rate is terrible. Well, you can actually, you know, like block it from your ads right here in Helium 10 ads.
You’ll have a chart of all of the creatives for you and your, uh, influencers. And you can see which campaign that video is showing in. What’s your spend? What’s your gross revenue? What’s your average order value? What’s your ACOS? What’s your product ad impressions.
You can sort it and filter it. So a lot of stuff that you’re not able to do in your TikTok seller center now on the analytics page. So for those of you interested in trying this out right now, only like elite members have a beta access to this, but, um, just reach out to us like here in the comments below or, um, contact customer service and say, you know, Bradley said that you could be in our beta.
If you’re a, at least a platinum member of Helium 10, or actually you might need to have a diamond account. I’m not sure. But if you have your TikTok ads token connected to your Helium 10 account, which doesn’t cost anything, doesn’t add anything to your diamond account.
Um, and you want to be whitelisted to test this out. Even if you’re not elite member send customer service and a message say that you heard this on the weekly buzz that, uh, you want to be whitelisted for this TikTok ads beta that we’re doing. But now this is going to give you a little bit more control over your GMV max ads, a little bit, uh, more visibility into some of the key metrics as well.
All right, next up another announcement from seller central it’s entitled, uh, assess new brand names with the brand name evaluator. It says the brand name evaluator. This, this reminds me, you guys ever remember those old, like, um, captain Kirk William Shatner commercials for what was it? Progressive insurance.
No, Priceline was like Priceline and he was like Priceline negotiator. It was like a famous commercial back in the day. Anyways, that’s why I keep thinking in my head when I read this brand name evaluator.
Anyways, you people who aren’t in America probably have no idea what I’m talking about. Uh, cause these are, these are all old commercials. Anyways, uh, it says here, the brand name evaluator can save you time and money analyzing your potential brand names before registration.
It’s an AI power tool and it will kind of like tell you what is the trademark viability. You know, this is something previously you might have to pay professionals to do like say, Hey, you know what? This is like too close to another, um, trademark. You know, you might not have a good chance of this.
Supposedly this AI is going to be able to, to do that. Uh, it’s going to check with the USPTO. It is going to have, it’s going to give you a analysis of how appealing to customers your brand is.
It doesn’t have a brand fit. It’s going to judge you on simplicity. So if you want to, to use this new tool, uh, basically go to build your brand inside of Amazon, click on create brand name, uh, click on check name ideas, enter that name, enter the brand name that you want and describe your company products and product categories, and then hit check.
And it’s off to the races, you know, as with anything AI, you know, make sure that you’re still double checking it. Don’t take it, you know, completely at its word, do your due diligence. I’m sure there’ll be disclaimers on the Amazon website for that, but a pretty cool feature, uh, potentially that could save you some money.
All right, that’s it for the news this week, but a couple of reminders, uh, guys, we actually have our Helium 10 elite workshop in a few days in Irvine, California. Normally this is for elite members. And if you’re not Elite member, you have to pay $299 for it, but we have some tickets left.
So if you’d like to attend at our office, I’ll be there. Leo Sgovio will be there talking about AI optimization for SEO. We’re going to have Josh Hadley there talking about how he’s now, uh, his exact strategy blueprint of how he became a seven figure TikTok shop seller.
Um, I’ll be there talking about a brand new way to do your keyword research and listings. We’re going to have, you know, hopefully, you know, 20, 30, 40 other elite members there that you’re going to be able to network with. And, and some people from Helium 10 too.
So if you’re interested in going and you want to go in for free, instead of this $299, go to h10.me forward slash q4 workshop h10.me/q4workshop and use the code Elite 100, no spaces in order to get a free ticket to this workshop. And I’ll see you there. It’ll be on Tuesday, early afternoon.
And also, as I mentioned, you know, you guys are probably listening or watching to this on the AM PM podcast. Maybe you’re a longtime AM/PM, a podcast listener. It don’t forget.
Um, if you haven’t done so subscribe to the serious sellers podcast, that’s where we talk to brands and get their stories. It’s a new format of podcasts here in the AM/PM podcasts. We’re mainly going to have like the news and we’re also going to bring in a different expert strategists like a professional guru, if you want to call them that or an agency owner or a software owner, or somebody who runs a community like the experts out there to give a training, right? Very education focused here on the AM/PM podcast.
If you’re more into like the seller stories, make sure to subscribe on YouTube or on your podcast player, serious sellers podcast. We’ve got tons of great episodes on there coming out once a week. All right guys, thank you very much for tuning into the very first ever weekly buzz here on the AM PM podcast.
Don’t forget to tune in next week to see what’s buzzing. Okay.
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